May 21st, 2011. The sun is blinding. Even the wind coming off the ocean is hot. My mom and I stand blinking in the sun beside a rusty green truck that looks dead parked by a small beach.

We have come here for beachcombing, so we wander down to the shore. After just a few minutes of walking, we decide to pack it up because there doesn’t seem to be much here other than trash and incredible heat. Mom heads straight back to the truck, and I say I’ll be there in a minute. We had planned to cover half the beach, but, being obsessed with covering every square inch of sand, I decide to walk the last 50-yard stretch we haven’t seen yet. Here’s what it would have looked like to watch us from above:

Mom and I take slightly different paths back to the truck, which happens to look like a race car in this bird’s eye rendering.